Nazis scapegoat Jews for legal pot —what a surprise!

Even back in the bad old days of Reefer Madness in the 1930s, when marijuana's association with Mexican immigrants and African American musicians was used as propaganda for the first federal laws banning the weed, it never came to this. But the canard that cannabis is a tool in a sinister Jewish conspiracy to subvert wholesome white American youth has now entered (almost) mainstream discourse.

Daily Stormer is a website that straddles the edge between open balls-out neo-Nazism and the (ever so slightly) disguised and euphemistic politics of the "alt-right," which has been dangerously mainstreamed since the ascendance of Donald Trump. Now editor Andrew Anglin writes a piece entitled "Can Trump Put the Brakes on the Weed Lobby?" He gripes: "It is personally disgusting to me that we are condemning a generation of children to grow up baked in this noxious substance. But there is now huge public support for it." And who is to blame? Take a wild guess. "Most of the marijuana industry, I can assure you, is run by Jews," Anglin writes, providing no evidence.

This charming piece of detritus was brought to light by Newsweek columnist Michael Edison Hayden, who also notes that according to a recent piece in The Atlantic, Anglin in his youth "took ketamine, ate psychedelic mushrooms, and snorted cocaine." Anglin also reportedly "chugged Robitussin" to get high, and drank so much of the cough syrup that he "damaged his stomach and would vomit into trash cans at school." Sounds totally plausible.

Hayden also notes that the neo-Nazi crowd has generally been aghast at the progress toward legal cannabis. David Duke, grand-daddy of the white supremacists, likewise recently urged his heroes in the White House to crack down on the herb—especially the notoriously cannabis-phobicAttorney General: “Come on Jeff Sessions get serious and do your job!” Duke tweeted, referring to California's pot law. “How can you pass ‘laws’ in contrast to existing federal laws? Why isn't the DOJ prosecuting these lawless politicians... These people belong in prison!”.

As ever, it is amusing to see these radical-right yahoos abandoning their supposed commitment to "states' rights" where the Evil Weed is concerned. When it comes to the "right to bear arms," or labor and environmental standards, or (a couple of generations ago) Jim Crow, then the feds are a bunch of "jack-booted government thugs." But now that they've got an administration that is threatening the cannabis industry, cracking down on immigration, dismantling the EPA and all the rest, maybe their view of federal power is changing.

Upon Trump's inauguration last year, Anglin openly boasted: "Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we did this." And he's continued to position himself as a cheerleader on Trump's right flank, just slightly more outrageous than the Donald himself. After an anti-fascist activist was killed by an "alt-right" rally-goer who ploughed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville last August, Trump famously blamed "both sides" for the violence. Anglin's Daily Stormer did him one better, running the charming headline: "Heather Heyer: Woman Killed in Road Rage Incident was a Fat, Childless 32-Year-Old Slut." A taste of the undisguised Nazi rhetoric: "Despite feigned outrage by the media, most people are glad she is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness. A 32-year-old woman without children is a burden on society and has no value."

Maybe with the recent bickering between Trump and his ousted advisor Stephen Bannon, who was seen as the alt-right's man in the White House, the ties between the administration and Anglin's crowd are starting to weaken. But it's still alarming how close to the highest levels of power they've managed to get.

These guys do appear to be on the wrong side of history, however. A new Quinnipiac poll shows 70% of voters oppose enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized medical or recreational cannabis. Hopefully, with more outbursts like this one, Anglin and his ilk—including Bannon and even Trump himself—will soon be laughed off the political stage.

About the Author

Bill Weinberg is an award-winning 25-year veteran journalist in the fields of human rights, indigenous peoples, ecology and war. He is the author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico, now available from Verso Books, and War on the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America (Zed Books, 1991).